where the great come to pretend
by burnouts
Summary: "It's a slow night tonight, and even with her lips painted a dark red and her skirt nearly nonexistent, she doesn't get a single customer until him." —LucyTeddy, mentions of prostitution and sex. Slight language. One-Shot. For the Song of the Day Challenge on Next-Gen Fanatics.


**song:** cigarettes in the theatre - two door cinema club  
**pairing:** teddy/lucy  
**prompts:** risk, demons, penny

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_And you could see it change  
Look past the blinding light, look past the blinding light  
Just keep talking now  
Tell me your favourite things, tell me your favourite things  
_—two door cinema club, cigarettes in the theatre

It's risky business Lucy is playing here—_sex in exchange for money—_but money is money, and she damn well needs it, and so what if she has to sell her soul in exchange for a pretty penny? It's that or a cardboard box in the street (or pleading for money from her father/family; like hell that'll happen, though). Maybe it's prostitution and maybe it's illegal but Lucy's only ever learned the rules so she could break them.

It's a slow night tonight, and even with her lips painted a dark red and her skirt nearly nonexistent, she doesn't get a single customer until _him._

He's got dark eyes, long legs, and brown curly hair_. _Lucy smiles in spite of herself. She hesitates to walk closer to him—he's leaning against the brick wall that makes up the old, abandoned, and supposedly "haunted" Emerson theater, smoking a cigarette. _"Where the great come to pretend,"_ the burned-out neon sign that's half-falling off says.

Define great, Lucy thinks, rolling her eyes. She hesitates two moments longer—for some reason she doesn't want to be turned down by this guy—before she reminds herself that the rent's over-due and she _really needs this money._

So she holds her head high and plants a smirk on her face as she sashays towards him, making sure to swing her hips seductively, like Candy (the prostitute a street over) taught her. And, oh Merlin, would her father have a heart attack if he saw his youngest daughter now. The idea of her father fainting if he ever caught her makes a giggle escape her lips, and it's only then that she realizes, oh shit, she's been standing in front of him without saying anything for five seconds two long.

"Wanna shag?" She asks, because all that "looking for a good time?" stuff that Candy and the other girls do has never been very Lucy-esque. No, Lucy's always been rather blunt.

It's only when the guy laughs and his hair turns _turquoise _that she realizes she knows who this is. "Teddy?" Lucy blinks at him, "Teddy Lupin? Well, shit." She turns away from him, shaking her head at herself. How did she not recognize him? She practically grew up with him! Of course, she hadn't come around the Burrow in about three years now, and she had spent a lot of time trying to forget all those familiar faces.

Teddy shakes his head at Lucy as she turns back to face him, cheeks pink, taking her in as he takes a long drag of his cigarette. "What the hell are you wearing, Luce?" He asks after exhaling smoke into the air. Lucy takes a moment to watch it disappear into nothingness, before she speaks.

"Work uniform?" She tries to remain innocent here, but it's clear that that is one thing he remembers from her that's _long gone. _Of course, he should know that, shouldn't he? He was, after all, the one that took it before anyone else could.

She was seventeen, he was twenty-two, and they were in love. But things change.

"I like it, though I don't like that other people get to see it." He says this casually and it makes Lucy angry. No, he does not get to do this.

"You left me, remember?"

But he smiles and it's like the devil himself. "Yes," is all he says as he takes one last puff of his cigarette before letting it fall to the sidewalk below. He stomps it out.

"What?" Lucy stutters, blinking at him.

"I'll shag you," he says mischievously, his hair and eyes turning a dark black colour that should make her want to turn and run the other way, but he's always had an odd effect on Lucy Weasley and she doesn't turn, no, instead she moves closer.

"Oh?" She cocks one eyebrow.

Teddy's arms slip around her waist. "Yeah," he winks and it melts her heart and makes her feel like he never left and she never changed, and she thinks maybe they could go back to what they had before – the long talks, stolen kisses, hand holding; the driving around at two am in his muggle car listening to the Smiths because neither of them can sleep, the sex they had underneath the stars on a picnic blanket that her mum still uses, oblivious to the fact that her daughter lost her virginity on it. They have a long history, and she's always been in love with him, so maybe that's why she doesn't move away when he leans down and presses his lips to hers.

* * *

And they're standing right _where the great come to pretend_ three years later, with the city lights of muggle London shining brightly behind them and a cigarette split between the two, when he gets down on one knee and asks, "will you shag/marry me?" and she laughs and accepts and, "that didn't even sound anything like me," and now she doesn't have to have sex for money and he isn't as lost as he once was and it's not Princesses and forever-afters but it's theirs and that's all that really matters.

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**note(s): **and no one died because louise said i needed to give my nextgen girls a break. ;(  
hope you guys enjoyed this! review, yeah? :)

xx


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